Evaporative cooling systems are becoming increasingly popular for use in conditioning air in larger vehicles, such as, passenger busses. Among other reasons, such systems are less expensive to operate and avoid the use of refrigerant and particularly those which are known or at least suspected to release harmful pollutants into the atmosphere. A problem associated with the use of evaporative cooling systems is their space requirements. For example, in my prior U.S. Pat. No. 4,835,982 for Evaporative Cooling System owned by the assignee of this patent application there is set forth and described a system which can be roof-mounted on a passenger bus but which nevertheless requires a large storage reservoir for water. In the past, by virtue of the storage capacity required, it was necessary to place the reservoir within a lower storage compartment or area beneath the passenger section of the bus and to run connecting lines for plumbing between the evaporative cooling section and the reservoir. U.S. Pat. No. 3,472,147 to Grasseler discloses an air processing system in which a water storage reservoir is mounted directly beneath the roof line of a vehicle cab to supply water for air cooling purposes. In many of the smaller commercial vehicles, extremely large storage tanks are not required and it is therefore proposed in accordance with the present invention to provide a system in which the storage reservoir can be roof-mounted together with the evaporative system itself thereby greatly minimizing the space occupied by the evaporative cooling system as well as avoiding the time and cost of installation of delivery and return lines between the reservoir and evaporator sections itself.
Other representative patents and publications in the field of interest are those to U.S. Pat. Nos 3,606,982 to Anderson, 4,094,935 to Walker et al and 4,672,818 to Roth. None, however, suggests or discloses a water storage reservoir which can be mounted above the roof line of a vehicle.